Jesus christ! I just finished watching this. I bagged an uncut bootleg with english subs and I'm here to say that this is one hell of a slasher movie. The premise is a little on the ridiculous side and in the end it leaves a ton of gaping plot holes which I won't go into in fear of spoiling the ending. However, what this does have is some of the most grisly special effects Gianetto Di Rossi has ever done. Fulci is pissed off in his grave right now that Di Rossi never turned out this kind of grue for his movies.

The violence is savage and raw. There were scenes that had me standing on my chair, yelling at the screen. It's a quick paced movie and in the end seems really short (just under 90 minutes, actually) but this is seriously awesome.

Each scene is a reference to another slasher movie. I could only point out a few (Halloween and Maniac) but the Fango article I read lists a few more.

Apparently this is getting an American release soon as High Tension and it's going to theaters uncut with an NC-17 rating attached to it, so keep your eyes peeled. This is seriously awesome.

shawn wrote:Well I wouldn't go that far, the gore in Zombie, Gates Of Hell, and The Beyond is as good as Haute Tension... He did do all those three right? I know he did Zombie and The Beyond...

Anyway, its an awesome slasher film and I can't believe that Lion's Gate is releasing it NC-17 in the theatre!!! Can't wait.

Might have some bad news, it's possible that LION'S GATE might be releasing it with an R rating. I really don't see how they can do this since the film has such a short running time to begin with. The gore is what makes the movie as entertaining as it already is. Hope they have the balls to release it with an NC-17.

Saw this at the Valley 6 Drive In in Auburn, Washington as part of the film fest last year, and it was excellent! Some people bust on the end, but I thought it was fine. It had a great old school vibe, and an FX guy from the Italian splatter flicks of the 70's and 80's. Can't wait for the U.S. DVD to hit (although I have a region free player, I would like to see what our version will have for extras).

I saw an ad for this on TV last night. It has an R rating and is dubbed into English but one of the actresses (the blonde one) redubbed her own voice. I also hear tell that the gore content is on par with the cut versions of the DVDs, which are missing all but a few extra seconds of splashy blood.

llapman wrote:Saw this at the Valley 6 Drive In in Auburn, Washington as part of the film fest last year, and it was excellent! Some people bust on the end, but I thought it was fine. It had a great old school vibe, and an FX guy from the Italian splatter flicks of the 70's and 80's. Can't wait for the U.S. DVD to hit (although I have a region free player, I would like to see what our version will have for extras).

C-YA

It's out now, I have it sitting right next to me... a friend of mine bought it off the internet and loaned it to me... I think I will have to watch it tonight....

Now that it is being released here I would check Scarecrow.. they like to make sure that "they had it first".

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I just took my gf to see the US theatrical release. I give her a lot of credit for not walking out. Even with the cuts, it's still pretty gory. I compared it to a divx I have which is labeled as a "2003 DVD screener," and there is some minor splashing that was snipped for the US screen. “House of 1000 Corpses” and “Cabin Fever” have nothing on this. It's an extremely unsettling and unnerving film that grabs you by the throat very early in the proceedings and utterly refuses to let go until the final frame. Truly intense, but the ending kind of ruins it. I'm looking forward to "The Devil's Rejects" and, more importantly, "Land of the Dead". I'm hoping the theatrical release of the former will finally bring with it a proper, uncut DVD release of "House of 1000 Corpses" (unless it already happened and I missed it)?

I saw it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it,despite the MPAA cuts and the most hilarious dubbing job since Jackie Chan's last theatrical released Hong Kong film,as well as enjoyed seeing Gianetto deRossi's splattery FX back on the big theatrical U.S. screen. And,I was glad that the surprise ending wasn't some "It's Only A Dream" twist as some people on various sites have suggested.

And Val,I'm sure that "The Devil's Rejects" ' upcoming release will bring Lions Gate onto bringing that longly awaited uncut,unedited,and unrated "House Of 1000 Corpses" onto DVD later this year(or early next year).

I find it hysterical that with JUST the right amount of cuts, this is suddenly a film that's okay to bring your children to as long as you're there to supervise them. Sure, maybe the NC-17 is a bit gorier than the R-cut, but give me a BREAK! This has still got to be "adults only" horror???!!! I'm truly amazed that something as brutal, vicious and in-your-face as HIGH TENSION is getting a mainstream release at all!

The dubbing? Well, okay. Fair compromise by Lion's Gate, I guess--bring the "bilingual" thing into it and segue into subtitles (for the most part) before the audience catches on. But I would have just released it subtitled to begin with--as if the horror audience was going to complain at this point? Sorry, but whenever the dialogue was dubbed into English, it was mismatch city and all that that entails.

Now, as for the ending? All right--nobody's dropped spoiler bombs here, but everybody HAS been primed to EXPECT something unusual by the end of the movie. And since plotwise the movie is (let's be fair) a generic "maniac stalker" film (no matter how stylishly photographed and directed), it makes sense that it would try to stand out by doing something significantly different before it was over. So I'm not going to complain about the ending...

...but I AM going to complain about the BEGINNING! If you're GOING to go a different route than usual, what on earth do you expect to accomplish by SPELLING IT OUT in the very first conversation??? As a result of the film's opening, I watched HIGH TENSION from beginning to end in a state of complete and total foreknowledge--there will be no joy of rediscovery for me here. Sorta like CARLITO'S WAY and A PERFECT WORLD, no? You COULD have startled me, but you apparently deliberately chose NOT to.

The (small) audience I was with reacted noisily and appropriately throughout most of the film--nervous laughter, screams, cheers, etc. However, during the last ten minutes of HIGH TENSION, they did nothing more than try to hoot it off the screen. And that's the impression they walked out with--which does not bode well for the film's future. But I'll still give the uncut French-language print a chance when it comes out.

The R rated cut really isn't missing much. You still get to see the gory scenes, but you don't get to see as much of them as in the uncut version. The severed head at the beginning is a little shorter, the head smash scene lacks the above angle that shows a bit more blood gushing and so on. It was really just a trim and the uncut version is really only a little longer.

I can't figure out what they were thinking releasng this as they did. It's very hardcore for a contemporary slasher movie.

Valgamon wrote:Since Remo pretty much blew the doors off it I'm starting to make a list of recent films with this ending...

So far I've got Secret Window, The Machinist and Hide & Seek.

Yeah, and HIDE AND SEEK started in with a newspaper ad campaign saying "DON'T GIVE AWAY THE ENDING!!!"

Doesn't anyone realize that a "surprise" ending is only a surprisING ending when nobody is even anticipating it? Is it any wonder that, for example, THE VILLAGE turned out the way it did?

Now NOBODY (myself included) gave any details about the last ten minutes of HIGH TENSION. But virtually everybody acknowledged that something was up. "Great except for that ending." "Preposterous plot twist." "Wish they hadn't done the ending like that." "An ending that defies all laws of physics as we know them (Ebert)."

And yet for all that, I still didn't know just WHAT was up and was still prepared to let the film play out fairly. But that opening conversation in the car? Game, set and match. Movie over. Spoiler successfully completed. Nothing but the gore to look forward to now.

Notice this had a 2003 copyright date. Now I'm wondering if Cecile de France made this or the Jackie Chan AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS first...